The 10x rule ffirs indd I 3/14/11 10: 22: 47 AM ffirs indd II 3/14/11 10: 22: 47 am the 10x rule The Only Difference Between Success and Failure Grant Cardone John Wiley & Sons, Inc

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Exercise
What is the fi re you have always wanted to start and add 
wood to?
What three things could you do to add wood to that 
fi re?
Who can you get support from in order to continue stok-
ing your fi re?
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115
CHAPTER
16
Fear Is the Great 
Indicator 
S
ooner or later, you will experience fear when you start 
taking new actions at new levels. In fact, if you aren’t, then 
you’re probably not doing enough of the right things. Fear 
isn’t bad or something to avoid; conversely, it’s something you 
want to seek and embrace. Fear is actually a sign that you are 
doing what’s needed to move in the right direction. 
An absence of concerns signals that you are only doing 
what’s comfortable for you—and that will only get you more 
of what you have right now. As strange as it may sound, you 
want to be scared until you have to push yourself to new levels 
to experience fear again. In fact, the only thing that scares me 
is a complete lack of fear.
What is fear anyway? Does it exist? Is it real? I know it 
feels real when you are experiencing it, but admit it: Most of 
the time, what you fear doesn’t even occur. It’s been said that 
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THE 10X RULE
FEAR stands for False Events Appearing Real, which aptly 
implies that most of what you’re afraid of doesn’t ever come 
to pass. Fear, for the most part, is provoked by emotions, not 
rational thinking. And in my humble estimation, emotions 
are wildly overrated—and the scapegoat many people use for 
their failure to act. But regardless of whether you agree with 
my opinion on emotions, you must reframe your understand-
ing of fear and use it as a reason to move forward rather than 
as an excuse to stop or retreat. Use this frequently avoided 
feeling as a green light to signal you to what you should do! 
Chances are that when you were a child, you found 
fear in irrational things—the boogeyman under the bed, for 
example. It was an indicator to check your closet and the 
dark corners of your room to see what was lurking. But as all 
children eventually fi nd, the boogeyman does not exist 
anywhere except in your head. Adults have their own 
“boogeymen”—the unknown, rejection, failure, success, and 
so on. And these boogeymen should be a sign to take action as 
well. For example, if you’re afraid to call on a client, then it’s a 
sign that you should call that client. Fear of speaking with the 
boss is an indication that you should march into his offi ce and 
ask for a moment of his time. Fear of requesting the client’s 
business means that you must ask for the business—and then 
keep asking.
The 10X Rule compels you to separate yourself 
from everyone else in the market. And you do that by—as 
I emphasized earlier—doing what others refuse to do. Only 
in this way will you distinguish yourself and dominate your 
sector. Everyone experiences fear on some level, and because 
the marketplace is composed of people interacting with both 
products and one another, the market will face fear in the 
same way that you and your peers do. But rather than seeing 
fear as a sign to run—as most other people in the market will 
do—it must become your indicator to go. 
I handle this dilemma myself by omitting time from the 
equation—since time is what drives fear. The more time you 
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Fear Is the Great Indicator
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devote to the object of your apprehension, the stronger it 
becomes. So starve the fear of its favorite food by removing 
time from its menu. For example, let’s say that John needs to 
make a call to a client, a task that immediately causes him to feel 
anxiety. So rather than picking up the phone and making the 
call immediately, he gets a cup of coffee and thinks about what 
he is going to do. His lengthy contemplation only causes his 
fear to grow, as he imagines all the ways the call could go badly 
and all the potentially terrible things that could happen. If con-
fronted, he’s likely to claim that he needs to “prepare” before 
he makes the call. But preparation is merely an excuse for those 
who haven’t trained properly—and who use it as a reason to 
justify their last-minute reluctance. John needs to take a deep 
breath, pick up the phone, and just make the call. Last-minute 
preparation is just another way to feed the fear that will only 
get stronger as time is added. Nothing happens without action.
Fear doesn’t just tell you what to do; it also tells you 
when to do it. Ask yourself what time it is at any point in 
the day, and the answer is always the same: now. The time is 
always now—and when you experience fear, it’s a sign that 
the best time to take action is at that very moment. Most 
people will not follow through with their goals when enough 
time has passed from the inception of their idea to actually 
doing something about it; however, if you remove time from 
your process, you’ll be ready to go. There’s simply no other 
choice than to act. There’s no need to prepare. It’s too late for 
that once you’ve gotten this far.
Now, the only thing that will make a difference is action. 
Everyone has had the experience of failing to do something 
they wanted to do. Perhaps by the time you got yourself 
“ready” to do something, someone else had taken action—
and now you’re regretting it. Failure comes in many forms; 
it occurs whether you act or not. Regardless of the outcome, 
I would say that it’s far preferable to fail while doing 
something than to fail by over-preparing while someone else 
walks up and scoops up your dreams. 
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THE 10X RULE
This scenario occurs in business every day. People give 
their fears much more time than they deserve. They wait to 
make the personal visit or phone call, write the e-mail, or 
present their proposal because they’re afraid of the outcome. 
Countless individuals share the same excuses for why it is “not 
a good time” to take action. The client is leaving town. The 
client just got back into town. It’s the end of the month or the 
beginning of the month. The clients have been in meetings 
all day. They are about to go into meetings. They just bought 
something. They don’t have the budgets. They are cutting 
back. Business is bad. There’s been a change in management or 
staff. I don’t want to “bug” them. They never return my phone 
calls anyway. No one else can sell them. They are unrealistic. 
I don’t know what to say. I am not ready yet. I just called them 
yesterday . . . and on and on.
All the excuses in the world won’t change one simple 
fact: that fear is a sign to do whatever it is you fear—and do 
it quickly. My wife tells me all the time that I “seem fearless.” 
The truth is actually quite the contrary; I am scared most of 
the time. However, I refuse to feed my fear with time and allow 
it to get stronger. I opt instead to get things done quickly. I’ve 
learned that it’s simply better for me to take this approach. 
You will experience the same when you’re fi nally able to take 
the plunge and do what you fear. In fact, you’ll be amazed 
at how much stronger you become and how much more 
confi dent you are to do new things. 
Taking massive action quickly and repeatedly will ensure 
that you appear fearless in the marketplace. The person who 
takes action on whatever he or she fears the most will be the 
person who advances his or her cause the most. Let the rest of 
the marketplace submit to anxiety and prepare unnecessarily 
for False Events Appearing Real. You’ve got a job to do. 
Fear is one of the most disabling emotions a human 
being can experience. It immobilizes people, and often, it 
ultimately prevents them from going for their goals and 
dreams. Everyone fears something in life; however, it’s 
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what we each do with that fear that distinguishes us from 
others. When you allow fear to set you back, you lose energy, 
momentum, and confi dence—and your fears will only grow.
Have you ever watched some kind of performer “eat 
fi re”? It appears that the trick here is to completely exhaust 
the oxygen that the fi re requires for life. Pull away too early, 
and oxygen refuels the fi re—which will then, of course, burn 
you. The same is true with fear. If you back off from it even 
the slightest bit, you give it the oxygen it needs to stay alive. 
So commit yourself entirely, remove time from the equation—
and you will snuff out your fears and be able to take more 
action.
Eat your fears; don’t feed them by backing off or giving 
them time to grow. Learn to look for and use fear so that you 
know exactly what you need to do to overcome it and advance 
your life. Every successful person I know of has used fear as an 
indicator to determine which actions will provide the greatest 
return. I use it in my own life, every chance I get, to remain 
aware that I am growing and expanding myself. If you aren’t 
experiencing fear, you are not taking new actions and grow-
ing. It’s as simple as that. It does not take money or luck to 
create a great life; it requires the ability to move past your 
fears with speed and power. Fear, like fi re, is not something 
from which you should pull away. Rather, it should be used to 
fuel the actions of your life.
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